1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to a system and method to allow valid profiles in autonomic computing discovery. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for a client to retrieve valid profiles from a central computing device based upon client properties.
2. Description of the Related Art
Within the past two decades, the development of raw computing power coupled with the proliferation of computer devices has grown at exponential rates. This phenomenal growth, along with the advent of the Internet, has led to a new age of accessibility to other people, other systems, and to information.
The simultaneous explosion of information and integration of technology into everyday life has brought on new demands for how people manage and maintain computer systems. The demand for information technology professionals is already outpacing supply when it comes to finding support for someone to manage complex, and even simple computer systems. As access to information becomes omnipresent through personal computers, hand-held devices, and wireless devices, the stability of current infrastructure, systems, and data is at an increasingly greater risk to suffer outages. This increasing complexity, in conjunction with a shortage of skilled information technology professionals, points towards an inevitable need to automate many of the functions associated with computing today.
Autonomic computing is one proposal to solve this technological challenge. Autonomic computing is a concept to build a computer system that regulates itself much in the same way that a person's autonomic nervous system regulates and protects the person's body. One enabling technology of autonomic computing is for a client-based application to acquire profiles without user intervention. In a non-autonomic environment, an application typically requests that a user provide profile settings (e.g. printer settings). In an autonomic environment, however, a desire exists to eliminate a requirement for a user to input profile information. Especially in situations where a user accesses a network from multiple locations (i.e. multiple buildings, remotely, etc.), the user may use separate profiles for each location. For example, a user may wish to print a document at a printer that is located in the same building that the user's computing device is accessing a computer network.
A suggested approach for a client to acquire profiles without user intervention is for a client to share profiles among peer clients in order to obtain profile information. A challenge found with this approach, however, is that there is no guarantee that a peer client device has up-to-date profile information. In addition, users may wish to control policy and profile propagation in a more secure manner.
What is needed, therefore, is a system and method for effectively managing and automating client profile updates in an autonomic computing environment.